Rachel Alexander's Blog, page 305

Klymenia

Klymenia:

therkalexander:

Dialectal variants of her name:


Periphona Πηριφόνα

Persephassa Περσεφάσσα

Persephatta Περσεφάττα

Persephone Περσεφόνη

Persephoneie Περσεφονειη

Persephoneia Περσεφονεία

Pherekratte Φερεκράττη

Pherepapha Φερέπαφα

Phersephassa Φερσέφασσα

Pherrephatta Φερρεφαττα

Phersephatta Φερσεφαττα

Proserpine Προσερπίνη


Allonyms and epithets:


Agelastos Ἀγέλαστος “Gloomy”

Aletis Ἀλῃτις “Wanderer”

Anthea Ἀνθεα “Flowering”

Azesia Ἀζησία Unknown meaning

Chthonia Χθονια “Of the earth”

Daeira Δαειρα “Knowing One”

Despoina Δεσποινα “Mistress”

Hagne Ἁγνη “Pure”

Karpophoros Καρποφορος “Bringer of Fruit”

Katachthonia Καταχθονια “Beneath the earth”

Kora Κορα “Girl”

Kore Κορη “Maiden”

Koure Κουρη “Young girl”

Kourotrophos Κουροτρόφος “Nurse/protector of young”

Nestis Νεστις “Watery”

Pasikrateia Πασικρατεια “With power over all”

Praxidike Πραξιδικη “Exacter of Justice”

Protogone Πρωτογονη “First-born”

Sôteira Σωτειρα “Savior”

What exactly is "Hieros gamos"?

Hieros gamos is Greek for Hierogamy and literally means sacred marriage/union. Across cultures, it was understood it was between a god and a goddess (theogamy) and simultaneously invoked by participants within the ritual acting in the part of the god or goddess or both, infused with the power of a deity. Before going further, I want to provide the caveat that I am neither a scholar nor am I a Hellenic Polytheist, and their interpretations will likely be better than mine.

We know from ancient sources that a celebration of the hieros gamos took place between Zeus and Hera in the month of Gamelion, and that an enactment of the hieros gamos took place during Anthesteria in Athens. There were rumors of a hieros gamos conducted at Eleusis within the Lesser Mysteries (Persephone’s descent to the Underworld for a hieros gamos with Hades) but the sources for this are dubious and written by people who sought to discredit the Eleusinian Mysteries.

We only have the barest of fragments to go on within existing texts from that time, and one of those mention of the hieros gamos comes from the comedy Meander where the character Chairephon joked about having the hieros gamos with his wife on the 29th of Gamelion instead of the proscribed date of the 27th because he wants to dine out, as single men likely did on a sacred day where they had no spouse to celebrate with. The majority of Hellas likely celebrated the hieros gamos like an anniversary, with the married couple having sexual intercourse on that day.

One of the reasons we have so little to go on is twofold. First, mystery cults in the ancient world didn’t want their knowledge passed about, and very few accounts ever were written down. Second, because so few accounts were written, they easily destroyed by the one mystery cult that eventually came to dominate the ancient world during the fall of antiquity: the Church. Given the proclivities of the church to shun sex within its priesthood, manuscripts from the competing cults of Demeter and Persephone, Dionysos, Adonis, and Zeus and Hera Teleia describing sexual ritual were probably the first ones on the fire when the fanatics sought to purge ‘pagan’ influence from the new world order.

Thankfully, there were several cultures who practiced Hierogamy besides the Greeks, and whose account survives. The poem The Love Song of Inanna and Dumuzi describes the Hierogamy between Inanna, goddesss of fertility, and Dumuzi the shepherd king whose kingship is sanctified by having ritual sexual intercourse with Inanna. It is probably our most complete account, followed by what a lot of scholars view as a controversial interpretation of the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon), the short 22nd book of the KJV Bible that, thanks to its sexual frankness, was almost not included in canon. But the similarities with its Sumerian predecessor are unmistakeable.

Why did The Love Song of Inanna and Dumuzi survive intact while its Greek and Latin counterparts were burned? Simply because the Love Song was written in Sumerian cuneiform instead of Greek or Latin or Arabic, and was thankfully overlooked by the fanatics.

So what actually happened during a hieros gamos and what did it actually mean? What took place on the 27th of Gamelion? Interpretations vary wildly thanks to lack of sources, but it could have been any or all of the following: Zeus and Hera celebrate their anniversary of Theogamia by engaging in sexual intercourse. The Hierophant and Hierodule of Hera Teleia would engage in sexual intercourse with each other, each invoking a deity. There was also the household celebration of hieros gamos, where a husband and wife would celebrate Zeus and Hera’s anniversary and the institution of marriage.

I want to close by saying to the Hellenic Polytheists or other scholarly pagans who follow this blog that if I got any of this wrong, please provide me with better interpretations. I shied away from more modern, new age interpretations of the “Great Rite” for a reason… mostly because they are based on mixing the hieros gamos with later medieval alchemical writings and a heavy dose of 20th century new age fluff claiming ancient origin. The internet (as well as most books) make it very difficult to separate one from the other.

Yeah, there are plenty of different versions, and I think no one is perfect. My point wasn't to bash the myth, but to question Tumblr as a whole. I've seen a lot of people up in arms about the very real problem of rape culture, and if we can't recognize an

I agree that rape culture is a problem and one that pervades our modern day society with aggressive force.

I agree that there are a lot of stories out there from cultures past that have rape as an element of the story, but since they were written down years ago in the context of societies that viewed women as chattel, I don’t know if I’d point to them as the real problem.

The fact that ancient myths and legends are being reframed and retold tells a lot more about the progress of our society. We’ve recontextualized a lot of modern myths and legends to fit closer to how we see society, and the majority of Hades and Persephone literature I’ve come across either grants Persephone full agency, has her mature into her agency, and/or has her changing Hades’ notion of women from Bronze Age to more feminist ideals.

When I write Hades, it is as a god who naturally views men and women as completely equal, lives in a realm where ancient goddesses hold a great deal of power, and has watched imbalances between the sexes in the mortal world adversely affect the souls of the dead. Was this the way the Greeks saw it? Of course not. The Greeks, specifically Attic culture, treated their women abominably.

But if our society didn’t reinvent myths and legends we’d all still be reading the Epic of Gilgamesh or Beowulf for the ten thousandth time instead of also adding similar heroes journeys like Star Wars to our cultural canon.

My concerns echo yours when it comes to rape culture being present in books conceived of and written in the modern day like Fifty Shades of Grey, a waste of tree pulp and electrons that’s an insult to women, to BDSM culture, and to the English language. As well as that book series about the sparkly vampires, and unfortunately most graphic novels by Alan Moore. Not to mention that most movies, even movies aimed at a female audience, cannot even pass the Bechdel Test.

Hi Kata. A family in the book im planning are descended from Greek mythology but aren't related to the Gods. They're my antagonists so they're rich, back stabby, greedy and full of hubris even towards their own kin. Im having trouble researching mortal Gre

Sorry this took so long to answer, I had to get all my notes in order.  You wouldn’t be stepping on my toes, and you CANNOT GO WRONG with all the wrongness of the House of Aeolus.  They are just totally fucked up from beginning to end and a lot of their most prominent members are on the Tartarus roll call.

Let’s do a brief overview, shall we?

Aeolus
Punished his son Macareus and his daughter Canace for incest by throwing his grandson (their issue) out a window to be torn apart by dogs.  Thus he was a kinslayer, possibly the greatest sin in Ancient Greece and went to Tartarus.

Sisyphus
Son of Aeolus.  Murdered house guests (one of the biggest no-nos in Ancient Greece as they were all about hospitality), raped his niece Tyro, tried to trick Persephone into releasing him from the underworld, got his wife Merope to skip certain funerary rites for him so he could con his way back to earth, trapped Thanatos in his own chains, captured Thanatos in a sack to keep death from happening.  Ultimately punished by Persephone and currently stuck rolling a rock up a hill for eternity.

Salmoneus
Brother of Sisyphus, son of Aeolus.  Murdered his subjects by throwing lightning bolt shaped spears at them from his chariot, which he’d set up on a wooden platform to mimic thunder. Pretended to be Zeus, was subsequently struck down by him.  In Tartarus, punishment not specified.

Athamas
Due to serious and continued shaming and philandering, his first wife Ino convinced him to kill his son by another mother, Phrixus, by way of human sacrifice, but Phrixus was rescued at the last minute by a fairly complex deus ex machina.  He was subsequently driven mad and murdered his legitimate son, Learchus.

Cretheus
Fathered several sons and daughters and seems to be the only one of the four major sons of Aeolus who didn’t fuck up extraordinarily.  He married his niece, Tyro, but that was something very common for royal Greek families who wanted to keep the bloodlines pure (and true of royal lineages before and after, ie. the 4-8th dynasties of Egypt, the Hapsburg family, etc.)  Ever wonder where the term “blue blood” comes from?  It’s because those of royal blood were so inbred that their skin was thin enough to see veins.  Hence, blue blood.

Tyro
Daughter of Salmoneus, wife of Cretheus, raped by Sisyphus who did so with the intent of begetting sons on her that would dethrone her father so Sisyphus could usurp his kingdom.  When Tyro found out, she murdered her sons by him.  She is the only singular female mentioned as a denizen of Tartarus (besides the Daenids).

Here’s a little aside to all this though:  The Aeolic branch of the Greek nation was Thessalonian, their descendant rulers were kings of Boeotia, and stories about them function about the same in mythology as the explanations about the lines of Ishmael and Lot function in the Hebrew Torah.  They’re not very flattering.  Tales about the House of Aeolus were written by Athenian authors in Attica, who were almost constantly at war with the Boeotians in pre-classical and classical times.

In the same respect, the descendants of Isaac (Israel) were constantly at war with the descendants of Lot and Ishmael, so of course they would tell unflattering stories about the founders of those tribes (Ishmael was born from a sex slave of Abraham, Lot conceived his nation by incest with his daughters).  By that same token, the most memorable and transcribed stories about the founders of the Aeolic branch of the Greek people would include their members all residing in Tartarus because those stories were written down by people who lived in Athens.

Hi hi!! I'm really sorry to bother you. I'm in the middle of Receiver of Many and it's the richest, most detailed P&H fic I've ever read!! It is absolutely beautiful. I was wondering if I could ask you about any sources you used when writing it? I'm really

I am so happy you’re enjoying it :D

I’ve had a few people ask for me to make a comprehensive list of sources, and I think this one’s it! So here we go… 

The (mostly complete) Resource List for Receiver of Many

The actual myths about Hades and Persephone:

The Homeric Hymns translated by Apostolos Athanassakis. (I highly recommend all his translations.  He puts ancient Greek in plain spoken modern English.

The Orphic Hymns translated by Apostolos Athanassakis

Theogony by Hesiod

The Iliad translated by Samuel Butler

The Odyssey translated by Samuel Butler

Theoi.com

Explications and Interpretations of the hymn and other dry academic texts that Kata loves:

The Narcissus and the Pomegranate: An Archaeology of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter by Ann Suter.

Eleusis: Archetypal Images of Mother and Daughter by Carl Kerenyi

The Homeric “Hymn to Demeter” : Translation, Commentary and Interpretive Essays, various authors

Texts that have since been discredited by most classical scholars but still have lots of literary goodies in them:

The Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticism: Sacred Practices and Spiritual Marriage by Arthur Versluis

The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazier

Black Athena: The Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization by Martin Bernal

Daily life and death in Ancient Greece and their associated rituals:

Rituals of Death and Dying in Modern and Ancient Greece by Evy Johanne Haland

Rites of Passage in Ancient Greece: Literature, Religion, Society by Mark William Padilla

The clothes and jewelry they wore:

Historic Costumes for the Stage by Lucy Barton

The crops they grew:

A History of World Agriculture from the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis by Marcel Mazouyer & Laurence Roudart

I hope this helps :)

thejazzvoid:This site’s one redeeming quality is that it’s the only known place where people’s...

thejazzvoid:

This site’s one redeeming quality is that it’s the only known place where people’s undying appreciation for pomegranates matches my own.

And I’d have it no other way.

ever-presentbitchface:therkalexander:“You’re an earth goddess… wouldn’t you agree that the best...

ever-presentbitchface:

therkalexander:

“You’re an earth goddess… wouldn’t you agree that the best way to keep a man from sowing his wild oats is to make sure that his grain silo is always empty?”

— Amphitrite, The Good Counselor by Rachel Alexander

A Free In-Progress Preview of The Good Counselor will start at Midnight PST January 10, 2019 on AO3, FictionPress, FanFiction, Wattpad, and Literotica.

A bitch (me) is fucking HYPE for this preview

Hello! I've been working on a story of my own for the last 2 years, and while I've got most of my plot organized, I'm struggling with the actual act of writing. Do you have any advice to aspiring authors for finding a starting point?

Don’t start at the start.

I wrote a lot of my work in sequence, but there was many scenes from Destroyer of Light that were written in segments before I finished Receiver of Many and before the rest of my writing caught up to sequence.

I bet you have a scene burning up your consciousness that’s somewhere in the middle of the book. Even if it’s only a few lines. Or a single idea.

My advice would be to write that scene, then build the rest around it. It doesn’t matter how fast or how slow you write the rest, but it’s going to be a lot easier once you deal with the one thing that propelled you to undertake writing your book in the first place.

“You’re an earth goddess… wouldn’t you agree that the best way to keep a man from sowing his wild...

“You’re an earth goddess… wouldn’t you agree that the best way to keep a man from sowing his wild oats is to make sure that his grain silo is always empty?”

— Amphitrite, The Good Counselor by Rachel Alexander

A Free In-Progress Preview of The Good Counselor will start at Midnight PST January 10, 2019 on AO3, FictionPress, FanFiction, Wattpad, and Literotica.

karlasouzawrites:“Persephone is having sex in hell. Unlike the rest of us, she doesn’t know what...

karlasouzawrites:

“Persephone is having sex in hell. Unlike the rest of us, she doesn’t know what winter is, only that she is what causes it.”

— Louise Glück —

“Persephone the Wanderer” (via kata-chthonia)